The Celtic Routes Project  is pleased to announce a series of online events for tourism businesses based in Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow and South West Wales. 

Three events, each based around the unique tourism offering, providing tourism businesses with the opportunity to co-design and develop new products and experiences aligned to the themes integral to the Celtic Routes brand offering visitors an authentic insight into the landscape, heritage and special qualities of West Wales and Ireland’s Ancient East.  Celtic Routes wants to enhance the bookability of experiences and bring to life the stories in each county through a curated collection of activities.  The key thing is that the experiences help visitors to better understand the county and that the provenance of place (landscape, nature, heritage and culture) is a key part of the experience.

Examples of potential experiences include:

• Nature and heritage walking tours
• Foraging trips
• Cycling tours
• Dark sky trails
• Activity packages such as coasteering, team building and water sports
• Wildlife watching trips
• Pilgrimage trips
• Arts and Crafts experiences
• Cultural tours

Theme: Celtic Adventure overarching theme of Achievement, Walking / Cycling and Golfing

When: 10am, Monday 24th January 2022

Eventbrite Link here

Theme: Celtic Land & Sea overarching theme of Blueway and Nature

When: 2pm, Monday 24th January 2022

Eventbrite Link here

Theme: People & Places and Cultural & Heritage overarching themes, including Arts & Craft, Festivals, Language & Lore and Pilgrimage

When: 10am, Wednesday 26th January 2022

Eventbrite Link here

Potential benefits of participating for your business include:

• A dedicated marketing programme to promote the experiences
• A dedicated section of the Celtic Routes website
• Media and blogger coverage of participating experiences.
• Improving the ‘bookability’ of the Celtic Routes
• Photographs of experiences made available to participants (as well as access to existing range of high-quality imagery)
• Development of networks of similar experiences in other counties.
• Learning trips to find out more about similar products in Wales and Ireland
• Support to extend your programme to other counties

The Celtic Routes project aims to encourage visitors to explore new areas of Wales and Ireland en route to their final tourist destination. The Project aims to highlight hidden gems, and transform less well known areas from transit zones to new touring sites.  This will increase the time visitors spend in these regions and capitalise on the opportunities to boost local economies and add value to the combined tourism offerings within the regions.  Led by Carmarthenshire County Council, the project will focus on the areas

The project will be developed through customer research, trade events and workshops as well as cross border visits by businesses in Ireland and Wales to bring together expertise and ideas. The aim is to increase the visitor appeal of the targeted areas of Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion in Wales and Waterford, Wicklow and Wexford in Ireland, including through the development of new trails linking local culture, heritage and the natural environment.

The project is led by Carmarthenshire County Council in Wales in partnership with Waterford, Wicklow and Wexford County Councils, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority and Ceredigion County Council in Wales and is funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Ireland Wales Cooperation programme 2014-2020.

The Ireland Wales Programme 2014-2020  is part of the European Territorial Co-operation (ETC) group of funds, which provides opportunities for regions in the EU to work together, to address common economic, environmental and social challenges.  The programme focuses on seeking solutions to shared challenges on both sides of the Irish sea, to improve the economic and sustainable development priorities of Ireland and Wales, in the areas of innovation, climate change and cultural & natural resources and heritage.

The Welsh Government manages the programme with partners, the Southern Regional Assembly (SRA) and the Department for Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER).  The overall value of the programme is €100m, utilising €79m from the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).  To find out more about the Ireland Wales programme and the list of projects click this link.